Reduce the work week for your employees. If people see that it works or is beneficial or gives you advantage, they might try to adopt it. — NOS4A2

Fair enough, Ford's model of 40 hours lead to the Fair Labor Act in 1938 and 1940. The problem is the problem with most of these type of experiments.. Who wants to be the model? I do know that there are some companies such as listed here: https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/

Maybe that will start a trend.. The problem is the disparity of white collar and blue collar.. but the even deeper problem is the idea that we need to make more output. Either more efficient output methods need to take place, or people must demand less it seems. Certainly owners of companies would want neither as unlimited growth of the company is usually the preferred mode of any business. Too many workers eats into profits, so that isn't much of a solution either to reduce work hours.

I genuinely don't understand why an antinatalist would care about any worldly cause. If life as such is so bad that it would be better to never have lived at all, then why care about anything? — baker

As I told you, because once already born, there's still a life to live. We are not promortalist, If you are going to ad hom/troll me, do it somewhere else. In other words, if you have nothing to say about the subject at hand, go fuck yourself and troll somewhere else (aka stop posting on this thread with the same question I have already answered.. aka stop ad homing with the same question about why I make questions at all on a philosophy forum other than antinatalism). You are not clever. You are not putting me in my place about being an antinatalist. You are not being cute. You are not doing anything. You are just annoying. If that was the goal, give yourself a pat on the back and move and annoy someone else.

I have no problem imagining people raising issues that are, well, plain as the nose their faces but this matter of the workweek, only a person to whom details matter and who's genuinely interested in the welfare of people will notice. You're the real McCoy, I can tell you that. You should stand for president. — TheMadFool

Is this sarcastic?

If you ask me, there's something horribly wrong with the 5 day workweek and 2 day weekend format. It seems to have been copy-pasted from a divine, Godly, work scehdule. God, as we all know, is omnipotent and we, lowly mortals, are, as far as I can tell, not! Something's off, don't you think? — TheMadFool

It's off because people have no imagination and fear change. Your mortgage says, "Can't fight it!".

@Bitter Crank My sympathies and criticisms of all the forms of Marxism are nicely summed up by Bob Black here:

Better their incongruity, though than any extant version of leftism, whose devotees look to be the last champions of work, for if there were no work there would be no workers, and without workers, who would the left have to organize? — Abolition of Work, Bob Black

Yes. I can see it working for some.

I answered here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/625140 . So stop trolling ad homing or contribute to thread.

I think you are right. The media itself has a vested interest in marginalizing those causes because they hurt their bottom line/advertising, etc. Any incident will get a by-line and swept under the rug. If John Brown were alive today, he'd get a resounding "Meh" and then we'd move on. — James Riley

Exactly. If it is not entertaining, and especially if it makes people question existential deep topics, and especially if it might lead people away from the current business as usual, it will be ignored.

It's something most people deal with.. Why wouldn't it be discussed?

Yep, this all makes sense. Can't add too much more to that surrounding CRT. It was hatched in a think tank and people followed the message, both left and right.

Ok, so let's take topics like antinatalism, veganism, antiwork philosophies, what would it take for people from these movements to be interviewed in media? My bet is, only if it is involved in some incident that puts it in a bad light.. Then it will just be discussed because of a red herring incident unrelated to the actual philosophies at hand.

How does this synchronize with antinatalism? — baker

Don't put people in the situation in the first place.. This is all post-facto stuff of course.

The fucking dummies love that shit. Entertainment becomes existential. To hell with health and welfare. — James Riley

Certainly like a dystopian novel come to life.

You see a lot of the same names running the circuit. — James Riley

This is certainly true.. It's like hired guns that they bring out with predictable talking points necessary for the 5 minute commentary needed to push the story along in the pre-determined direction.

But they have to rise through the ranks, talk radio, local politics, etc. Once they've proven they can consistently be a troll or a clown or something that get's people going, then the "talent" scouts will ensure they aren't a 15 minute flash in the pan (like that dummy that shot Travon Martin) and the present the stable to the execs in the board room. I'm sure that "test marketing" is done and they weed out those who can't stand under pressure or stick to talking points, or get distracted by truth and facts. — James Riley

That seems to be what is happening. I'd agree.

What would it take for a topic to get legs? CRT got legs because it had to do with race and it went nicely with the George Floyd incident and the structural racism theme. Was this out of ratings? Market testing? Or a genuine concern for structural racism? Is it that the topic of structural racism is being pushed, or is it market tested as the best ratings? What is wagging what here?

Ah okay, I thought that was just you being a pessimist. — Kenosha Kid

That I am, but this is more from Socratic methodology.. Consider opposing points, so they can be overcome and see if there is a stronger argument once the opposition is considered. To pretend that there is not (at least) two sides is foolhardy in any philosophical, political, or value-based endeavor.

Ratings = $. Who is going to get more people watching/listening? Like reality T.V. That's why the orange fat ball was so successful. That's why the media gave him so much free air time. That's why they play "gotcha" and "whataboutism". Which sap is most likely to play into your efforts to trigger a ratings-favorable reaction? I could go on, but you get the point. It has zilch to do with a search for truth or enlightenment. It's a circus. — James Riley

I agree 100%. But who sets the agenda here? How is it done in the executive rooms behind the scenes? For example, when would antinatalism ever be a topic even something like a public radio would take up vs. CRT or any other topic.. (and public radio does provide room for a larger gamut of topical interests if compared to a CNN). Does there have to be some sort of "incident".. A weird brawl breaks out and antinatalism is somehow thrown in the mix.. then it gets coverage because if it bleeds it leads? I mean the topic of antinatalism seems bizarre enough to the "average folk" to spark interest and emotion, even if it is outrage or flabbergast. Even if it will be outrage to a bastardized version of it (sheared of all nuance) similar to how CRT was treated and shorn of its original ideas based in law school theory.

Charles Sarolea's book "The Angle German Problem" is perhaps one of the most important books to read in order to understand what has happened to the US since implementing the 1958 National Defense Education Act. One of the first things the Prussians did when they took control of the whole of Germany was to centralize public education and focus it on technology for military and industrial purpose. The Prussians lived for military might as the citizens of the US lived for a love of God. Religion is good for war and war is good religion. — Athena

I'm not sure if you've seen a lot of US schools.. but a lot of them have nothing to do with the kind of education needed to engineer weapons.. Are we talking urban or suburban schools? Because urban schools are often just trying to keep the kids and its own funding afloat for four years...

This is why progressive nations need to put working hours caps into legislature: the preference for employers would be to have a smaller staff working longer hours: it keeps wages low, because there's a queue of people after your job. — Kenosha Kid

I think there should be more radical change. Income and employment should be severed. They are at odds to human happiness but are quite good for economic models that a priori rely on its own normative models as descriptive models. Economics is useful to an extent that ethics is useful to an extent. The moment though that economics pretends to be able to be descriptive, it becomes duplicitous. The very system it is looking at is built on the norms that it promotes.. You can never get out of its own self-induced models.

which seems to acknowledge the need for change. But you also seem to reject any answer that would require change. — Kenosha Kid

I am just trying to push people along, give them the opposing view, get to a place where everything is considered.

How about eliminating advertising? Credit cards? mortgages? private cars? Credit cards, home loans, auto loans, education loans — Bitter Crank

Advertising is a way for the little guy to get ahead and be heard. Some people might ask what is wrong with this? Otherwise all you would know is X and Y big companies and not these other ones..

Loans are needed because they do not have the available capital at the time of purchase. What else would suffice in giving the owner the money to sell their property?

Here's the thing.. I agree with you in all this, but the change that would have to happen is related to how we think of income. Income has to be attached to some job-like entity in our current model.. If government took over all the things credit is doing with taxes, this would reduce the economic output and ultimately raise unemployment. But unemployment then shouldn't be attached with income to maintain this.. I am okay with that, but that is the piece of the puzzle you are missing. In your model it seems, employment is still tied to income..meanwhile you are advocating for policies which (at least in quantity output) reduces employment numbers.

None whatsoever.

Please note: my socialist alternative does not exchange working for a capitalist pig with working for a state pig. The third possibility is the worker-owned, worker-managed economy. We don't have a lot of experience with this approach, but we have some--cooperatives, for instance. — Bitter Crank

But what if a CEO actually did invent something useful, and got money for it, and employed people to work his fiefdom.. He would say that he made something useful in the market economy. His supply met demand and he was rewarded for it. Why shouldn't he get to own the resources that he made with his money and his idea? If the people don't like it, they can find another CEO fiefdom to serve.

It is still true that simplifying life, whenever, wherever, however possible would give us more time to live. — Bitter Crank

Can you give examples? A book is simpler than a TV? But sitting around a fire is simpler than a book. A garden and a fire is simpler than a stove? Silence is simpler than talk? Talk in person is simpler than on the phone? Not if the people are far away..

In other words, could simplicity really not be that simple to define or apply?

ic democracies supplimented by community-based time banking. (Yeah, I know, this will never happen.) Otherwise, it can be done, I suppose, far less equitably by accelerating automation (which is already happening, just hasn't reached the permanent unemployment crisis threshold yet) or, less humanely — 180 Proof

In a more mundane sense @Bitter Crank is right.. what can happen is employers pay workers the same or more but reduce hours.. In other words, reduction in hours does not equate to reduction in pay, they have to be inverse.

I would like to ask @Bitter Crank, what is the difference of a worker working for a state entity and worker working for a private entity in terms of exploitation? Can't both simply exploit their workers by depriving the resources to live if you don't work for them? I don't see how changing the pieces around changes the substance of the issue. Lot of wishful thinking backed by small changes in classical economic ideas it seems.

Fair question. I don't think it is the Protestant Work Ethic that holds this in place so much as capitalism and faith of free market economics - every bit as religious as Religion. — Tom Storm

Yep, but the idea that one should not reduce work because it somehow confers a sort of virtue, is what I mean.. Work itself just has to be part of the culture. It takes pretty dull people to not think beyond the habit of "going to a job" for meaning in life. And apparently there are a lot of these people that don't know what society is like without it.

Mind you, as David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory) points out that there are many, many men and women in 40 hour a week jobs that do 7 hours of actual work. — Tom Storm

A lot of jobs yes. But it is the habit of the job lifestyle of "focusing on this that the company wants me to focus on" that we mean by job here, not the output.

For the rest of us, the essential tasks of raising food, making clothing, and making (or maintaining) shelter still requires a relatively small amount of time. We donate vast amounts of time to the CEO and his ilk -- parasites all. — Bitter Crank

But we like our plumbing, heat, cars, roads, electrical grid.. etc. etc. endless blather.. just think STEM fields. We like our movies, our popular music, etc. etc. We like our electronics.. we like our easy to obtain items from online or department stores.. The CEO would just say that their fiefdom provides for us the "free time" in our non-work time to enjoy all that stuff.

Most people find this idea no more appealing than antinatalism. We are about equally out of step with the rest of the world. — Bitter Crank

Are you talking about the idea of simplicity?

Work is required to maintain existence. Food has to be grown, clothing has to be made, shelter has to be built. A lot of work has to be done before we can move on to arts and crafts. — Bitter Crank

A truism which certain other philosophies bypass.. But I won't say it.

Can mechanization and automation deliver the basic requirements and allow us the leisure of hunter gatherers? — Bitter Crank

Service jobs and maintaining the machines themselves... probably not.

Simplify, simplify, simplify--both an end and a means. — Bitter Crank

The CEO believes that a rising tide raises all ships.. Simplifying then makes no sense.
You said yourself that people need an income. Income isn't a neverending stream that is "in-coming". Rather, income is a finite resource to be distributed to those who work their Lord's fiefdoms..
People will say with exuberant optimism:
If we are "peasants" then why are so many people able to afford health care, technology and entertainment?
Surely just because there are people who cannot afford it, doesn't wipe out the billions of people who can, and that is an achievement.

Good luck with reducing the work week! — baker

I asked what it would take. You said changing the values people live by. So it seems if given the maximum amount of consumer spending, people will take it and not leave it on the table any more than saving for more consumer spending down the line. You do get your ultra-wealthy who can afford to be "noble philanthropist" types and you have your occasional monk or serious Robinson Crusoe person. You have your voluntary homeless (as opposed to those who rather get out but can't), your occasional commune type that is usually a temporary arrangement when they get tired of it. Yeah, voluntary poverty doesn't seem popular, this is a truism.

Dramatically changing the values people live by, so that everyone works 20 hours at most, but everyone has a job, albeit a low paying one, and people live in modest cirumstances, three generations per home. And have fewer or no children, until the human population reduces to an economically viable level. — baker

Good luck with that.

Very punny.

And so then they join another company or try to start their own, which works out all the time of course.

IF workers owned the means of production, and IF production were for need and not profit, then a 40 hour work week would be an anachronism. Unfortunately, workers do not own the means of production. — Bitter Crank

Playing devil's advocate:
Let us say that a CEO really is someone who invented something people wanted. He gets rewarded by profiting off his company. He would say that since he came up with it, he would be the one entitled to the profits, no? He doesn't owe the workers anything and they can look for other CEOs if they didn't like his vision, no? Again, completely playing devil's advocate here.

Among the earlier generations of Lutherans, Calvinists, et al, these were vital issues. What percent of the population, do you think, actually know who John Calvin or Martin Luther were and what they taught? — Bitter Crank

Good points, but isn't the PWE nowadays simply the idea that you must like to "go to work" or "work for work's sake" or cherish some "inherent good" of work? It has become sheared of the theological original theories that drove them. Work remains, the meaning behind it did not.

A reduction in hours worked has to be accompanied at the same time by a significant increase in wages and benefits, else the worker is just further impoverished. — Bitter Crank

Agreed.

Whether or not it has anything to do with Protestantism, [don't Catholics work as hard as Lutherans?] most people seem to believe that working is a good thing. They do well to think positively about work, because not having an income means having a pretty bad life. There's nothing particularly Protestant about that. — Bitter Crank

Right, but now you are waffling from Marxist to capitalist thought it seems. I mean, is most work something people are positive about or is it sort of just an epiphenomenon of the system? In other words, if you take away the status surrounding it or whatnot, or the cultural things attached to it, it just becomes tasks to do to take up time to get compensated for later consumption. Most tasks done for "work" are not inherently interesting, just necessary to get the income.

Let's say painting, cooking, gardening, building furniture, and playing music represent typical activities many humans "enjoy" in their free time.. Eventually we will run into a problem because the type of work that is necessary to "run" a complex economy and the type of "hobby-like" work that Marx may be talking about that is "inherently" good, is not equal in the supply and demand. Thus how do you solve this?

What you are going to say is simply better wages and benefits, but that seems like a really lame way of saying there is no way out of this trap of boring work.. Hence why I think the economy is based on boredom distribution, not supply/demand in the traditional sense.

Ok @Bitter Crank, any ideas? Is the Protestant work ethic and un-American anti anti-work pushback a thing?

I'm going to go against the grain here as one of the only philosophical pessimists on this forum, and your OP seems right in my lane to respond to..

We always see the term "human condition" in philosophical literature.. but that is a slippery term up for interpretation. Here is how I think it does fit as a useful term:

A "human condition" would be something that is apart from other living creatures' conditions (like animal/plant/non-sentential). So what in the human condition, sets us apart? Well, we can judge what we are doing as we are doing it. We are (probably) the only animal that can do a task related to keeping us alive and make linguistic-based judgements like, "I hate doing this task" while you are doing that task.. And that task might be something like work, or chores, or driving in traffic, or picking through the trash, or whatever it is you find yourself doing to keep yourself alive in some sort of socio-economic system (most likely it will be how you fit into the global industrialized one we have today unless it is as a tribal person in a hunting-gathering localized one or Robinson Crusoe situation). This provides an extra layer of pessimism on top of simply surviving. We cannot just "be" in our enivrons, but we must know that we are being, and we can judge any task, any moment, any thing as negative. This is the human condition- our ability to have a secondary layer of knowing on top of just "being" as other animals seem to have.

Also, you should read up on Schopenhauer. He really gets to the heart of existing "in the first place". Basically his theory is that of constant uneasiness and dissatisfaction. We must keep our minds occupied, and it is up to us, because as Sartre said: "Existence precedes essence". There is no reason for this or that motivational goal. The true main motivators seem to be survival-related needs, comfort-related needs (both relative to culture), and a heavy dose of boredom-related needs. We are never satisfied just "being" but always running around, filling up the time, and providing all sorts of reasons based on personality-based preferences for why we did it. But really, it's boredom and survival (within a cultural socio-economic base).

But the thought of having to work all my life for the major sole purpose of survival does feel like a massive trap as well.
Think our need to eat to survive has been a major curse for us. If we somehow transform into beings that don't need to eat, think we'll see a major shift in how the human society functions. — Echoes

Being born, it's the human condition to want and to know you want. Deprivation theory. You are deprived and that leads you to need and want what is not present now. Schopenhauer discussed this.

So it's a forced game indeed, and you're absolutely correct in raising it for criticism. — Xtrix

Thank you. Glad to bring it to light.

Almost finished, I think what I'm struggling to understand from the two posts that I've seen from you is, what element of life do you apply the most value to in both your anti work argument and your Willy Wonka example? — Sheffwally

Don't make people play the challenge/harm/imposition overcoming game unnecessarily.

Being born is also a "forced game" in the exact same manner as work, so where does that line of thought actually take you besides moral nihilism? — Sheffwally

Well yes, I am an ardent antinatalist.

Our current economic position (in most of the world at this point) allows us more freedom and choice than every other time in human history. — Sheffwally

A forced game with some more options is still a forced game. You cannot choose not to play the game unless you die of suicide or slowly from starvation from not playing the game.

Your lack of imagination here, makes you look like the "unhappy" slave in your ending analogy. — Sheffwally

I cannot imagine away the thrownness of the given. See here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10842/willy-wonkas-forced-game/p1

So that justifies you causing harm? — Pinprick

Then how is it harming them if they don't have to follow it? I don't get it?

Your opinion is presented to people without their consent, and that opinion could be harmful. — Pinprick

Oh I see.

Sure they can walk away, but that’s after the harm has already occurred. The fact that we can kill ourselves (thereby ending the suffering) doesn’t suffice to justify having children in your view of things. So the escapability of harm seems irrelevant, or at least it doesn’t justify taking the risk of causing harm to someone else. — Pinprick

If a bully cannot get to bully others, and this makes him suffer. Does he get to bully others?

If it causes sadness, then it’s harmful. Being sad is a form of suffering, right? And it isn’t like one can’t voluntarily suffer. — Pinprick

Then they don’t have to follow it. Being pained for not causing pain is my point. If that doesn’t compel you then I’m not forcing. It’s not forced. It’s not inescapable.

Yes. And you think so too for the Utopia example and surprise parties. Neither are needed impositions. The disagreement here is about the size of the “baggage” — khaled

If one is committed to not causing unnecessary and inescapable harms and impositions...

We disagree as to happiness-making and virtue-making being moral. I think it is something to pursue if you want, but is non-moral. One is not obligated to give happiness or virtue, but one is obligated to not cause unnecessary, inescapable, harm/impositions/challenges.
I think one can judge how much of a prick or asshole or miserly someone is for not bringing happiness maybe.. but that's a character judgement.. value but not obligation.

Except it is a specific claim that you should not have children, isn't it? That to do so would be wrong, would be blameworthy. Benatar does not just say, "If and only if you have children, they will be harmed," which is surely true, but also, "Therefore you should not have children." — Srap Tasmaner

It's not about blame. It's simply about what counts morally. Does giving happiness or the chance to be virtuous to someone else count as moral? I don't think so. I think it is neutral or non moral. It's something one can pursue, but not something one is obligated to pursue.. Not causing harm UNNECESSARILY, and not causing challenges to overcome only to be escaped by death or starvation and all the contingent harms (like oh let's say a lifetime's worth of harms which de facto comes from being born) is in the realm of morality. It doesn't matter who caused what.

As for consent, I don’t suppose you’ve obtained consent from the people you try to persuade/prevent from having children. IOW’s you’re not concerned about the harm your success at convincing others to not procreate may cause. So you must not think potentially causing harm to others without consent is wrong. — Pinprick

If I am causing someone to be affected for a lifetime of harm, then lets talk.. But making an argument that might harm someone because they don't like it is trivial. They can walk away, ignore, go away. I am not forcing it on anyone. Get that??

However, your justification for AN is that it potentially causes unnecessary harm without consent, therefore it should be prevented, but attempting to prevent it also potentially causes unnecessary harm should you succeed in your attempts to convert others to AN. This is where you contradict yourself. — Pinprick

"Converting" doesn't harm them if they are doing it voluntarily..Obviously they agree with the argument even if it causes them sadness. So you are creating a classic straw man or red herring.

I really can't understand that step. I think there's an ontological discontinuity there which is being obfuscated. Not that I have an alternative. — Wayfarer

Computational connectionism

What kind of political agenda? — Shawn

It’s made on another persons behalf. The reasons people use for why it’s justified to create suffering. Anything other than the child will suffer is the political reason as suffering is what matters . Happiness, growth, or any other X reason is neutral or non moral consideration. Even seeing someone who will be virtuous is overlooking that child for an agenda (to see virtue being carried out by your offspring). It’s all “in spite of suffering I want to see this carried out”. It’s the in spite of I have a problem with.